Miguel Cotto to fight in November

By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto (37-4, 30 KO’s) will be attempting to end his two-fight losing streak when he returns to the ring in November against a still to be determined opponent. There are rumors that Cotto will be looking to fight the winner of the April 20th unification bout between WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout.

Cotto likely would prefer the bout against Canelo because it’s the bigger money fight, and he has a fighting style that is more suited towards Cotto’s brawling style compared to the elusive Trout, who easily beat Cotto by a 12 round unanimous decision last December.

Cotto says he only wants to fight three more times before retiring from boxing. That’s believable if he continues to lose fights like he’s been doing recently in his defeats to Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr. However, if Cotto finds success against Canelo, Trout or whoever they put Cotto in with in November, then you can expect him to retire at the end of the three fights. Cotto wants to fight just once in 2013, and then presumably wrap up his career after fighting twice in 2014.

Cotto is at the point in his career where he only wants to take the big fights that bring in good money. He said recently that he’s interested in moving up to middleweight, so it’s possible we could see him moving up in November if he doesn’t face the Canelo-Trout winner. I highly doubt it, though.

The biggest fights for Cotto at middleweight are against Sergio Martinez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., and both of those guys will be meeting up in a rematch in late 2013, so they’re not going to be available for Cotto to fight. The only real options for Cotto are to fight the Canelo-Trout winner or look to put together a rematch against Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao. Those are all fights that would bring Cotto good money.

The problem with fighting Pacquiao is that Cotto would have to likely agree to drain down to a catchweight of 150 lbs. to make the fight happen, and I think Cotto would be weakened from doing that and would take a beating from Pacquiao. However, Cotto might be able to KO Pacquiao if he looks to land hard head shots exclusively because Pacquiao’s ability to take shots to the head may have been decreased after he was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez last December.